I went through that with WMP too. The new version is prettier, but I had trouble finding controls that were easy to find previously. Seems like every new license agreement gets more ominous, but I seem to be getting callous.

Tabbed browsing isn't likely to save much in the way of resources, because each tab is a complete browser window in its own right. They share the toolbar, menus, and address bar, but those can't amount to anything in comparison to the load from a Web page full of graphics. Inactive tabs (browser) might have their memory swapped out to the temporary file and there might be savings there, but it's not actually any different than having the same number of standalone windows open.

I like tabbed browsing for organizing multiple open Web pages. My permanent Zone browser has a tab for main interface, a tab for the ModSquad, and zero to way-too-many tabs for all the links I click in posts. Then I have another browser for my current Web design project, with tabs for the site plus references and test pages; and etc. etc. etc. There've been times when Task Manager reported that Firefox was using nearly half a gig of memory, and it creeps up on me because with the tabs it's not so obvious that I have dozens of browsers open.